Airsoft Guns, Bamboo Blades and Unyielding Love
by A New Username
Summary: Four girls. Two love stories. No boys involved. Insane amounts of drama. Bring it on. (Female Kirito, yuri, attempt at super contextually realistic relationship pacing, no VRMMO AU, rewrite of Shoot to Thrill, Swing to Kill. More SFW than it sounds and I swear to God the sentences in the actual story are longer than the ones in this dramatically-written summary.)
1. I: Free Spirit

**Author's Note**

 **Oh hey! I said I'd make this like a year ago. Never even considered starting it until yesterday, when I was stumped on how to continue literally everything else I'm working on. Thus, this first chapter was born.**

 **This is the rewrite of Shoot to Thrill, Swing to Kill (It will also include a rewrite of the sequel, Forgive – Forget = Love, if this ever gets that far). It aims to fix the biggest flaws in the original piece – namely, the dreadfully fast pacing and relationship progression, the lack of description, and the unbearably short chapters.**

 **This chapter was going to be edited by ForteDragon, my cover artist, but she was busy, so I just went ahead with the publishing. I may have her edit future chapters, but for now I guess I'm going solo. No editing of proofreading has been done on this. Should be okay at least, I typically have decent grammar with no edits, so it'll at least be readable. Please point out any mistakes you find so I can fix them at the soonest available opportunity.**

 **So, let's get on with the warnings, shall we? Some of them are general stuff that I do for all my fanfics while some of them are specific to this story/the one it's based on. For example, major differences between the original story and this new version are included as warnings.**

 **Kirito is female. I also changed her personality a bit from the original Shoot to Thrill and gave her a new quirk which you will see this chapter. To be specific, something new and different for her to really, really like…**

 **There will be yuri. Specific pairings include female Kirito/Sinon, Asuna/Yuuki, female Kirito/Yuuki (in flashbacks) and female Kirito/Asuna (also in flashbacks). I may add more pairings with other characters as the series progresses, but for now, those are the only ones in the outline.**

 **In addition to changing the female Kirito, I changed a** _ **lot**_ **of stuff from the original. From the characters and their likes/dislikes to certain events (and their chronology sometimes) to even the time the story starts. The original story started in the fall, but this one starts in the late summer. I'm also adding a whole bunch of all-new events to pad out the bad pacing of the original, too.**

 **That's about it I think. If you aren't bothered by those or were a fan of the original story, go ahead and read. It should be entertaining.**

* * *

Airsoft Guns, Bamboo Blades and Unyielding Love

Chapter One: Free Spirit

* * *

Normally, Shino Asada didn't mind sitting near a bunch of kendo club members at lunch. They were typically quiet, reserved, and polite – the ebony-haired girl supposed their training and way of life made them better people to deal with overall. However, there was one scenario in which she simply couldn't stand being in the same room as them, let alone sitting right in front of them like she did.

Specifically, when anything noteworthy happened in the kendo world. The club seemed to be full of kendo geeks who would go on and on about the sport with only the slightest provocation. They were just so damn _annoying_ when they had something related to their extracurricular activities to gab about.

She knew she could always go find another spot to spend the period, but she felt that if she were to move because she couldn't stand being near them, then she lost to their annoyingness. And besides, finding a new spot was easier said than done. The only place she could think of that would be devoid of other people would be the roof, but the doors were all locked. If she wanted to go up there without being noticed by teachers, she'd have to climb the branches of the big old Sakura tree by the gym, and that was difficult to do when holding a book or lunch in one hand, so in the classroom she stayed.

"You saw it, right? That Kirito guy won the nationals as a teenager!"

Unfortunately, they did in fact have something to geek out about this day. On the bright side, it actually sounded kind of interesting. From what Shino knew of the sport through these girls, kendo was something that took decades of experience to become truly proficient at. Yet they were saying the national tournament was won by a teenager… it was quite intriguing, to say the least. The unintentional listener put her bookmark back into her book and shut it, deciding to pay more attention until she lost interest.

"Yeah! Not only is he highly skilled, he's also insanely fast… his movements are hard to even follow, let alone counter!"

So then this teen won by speed blitzing his opponents? That actually made a surprising amount of sense to the bespectacled girl. After all, by the time one typically became highly proficient at kendo, their physical prowess, speed included, would likely have dropped a bit. A physically fit teenager with proper training would still be young and full of energy, which meant higher speed potential.

"Isn't it weird that even after winning it all, he didn't show his face?"

"Yeah. I was hoping for a big reveal if he managed to win, so it was kind of disappointing when he kept all his gear on even through the award ceremony!"

Wait, so nobody knew what this person looked like? How were they so convinced it was even a boy, then? For all they knew, it could just as easily have been a girl under that gear! Did they just assume that this person was male based on the speed they exhibited in the matches?

Shino opened her book again, having heard enough of their conversation. She pushed the bridge of her ovoid-rimmed glasses up with her free hand – though they provided no real visual correction, she still couldn't stand it when they slipped too far down her face, which happened quite often after an incident in PE with a basketball a week prior. She decided she really had to consider going to an eye doctor to get them adjusted to fit normally again sometime soon.

Just as she found her place and began to read, a loud ringing broke her concentration. Apparently lunch period was over. If it weren't for the teacher returning to the classroom right then, the ebony-haired girl would have turned and told off the three girls behind her for keeping her from finishing a single page of her light novel with their idle gossip.

* * *

After school ended, Shino decided to go to the town's eyeglass shop and get her glasses fixed. She made the trek from school in about ten minutes, finding the glass door wide open to allow the nice, cool late summer breeze to circulate through the building.

She walked into the store and found that other than her, it was pleasantly empty. The eccentric owner of the place didn't seem to be out front, but the ebony-haired girl could hear something going on in the back room, so she knew that she wasn't totally alone. Still, the place being devoid of other customers, as per the usual on weekdays, was nice – it made it quiet and serene.

The walls of the place were lined with every kind of glasses frame one could imagine. There had to be at least a thousand unique pairs to choose from. The owner of the shop designed a great number of them herself, often spending a significant portion of her free time playing around with a computer program for concepts, or so she often said to excuse almost never being at the glass front desk to greet customers.

In the middle of the room was another desk, this one mahogany, with a single black leather chair. On top of the desk's glass top layer on the right resided a mirror, and on the left, a small rack with transparent plastic circles of varying colors (which represented the various tints they could give lenses). Typically, the customer being served would sit there whilst getting their glasses adjusted. For convenience's sake, there was a small round bell on both this desk and the one at the far end of the room that one would tap to get the attention of the owner from the back.

Shino walked up to the closer desk and rang the bell. She promptly heard some sort of loud bang coming from the store's back room, followed by a somewhat angry shout that she didn't think she wanted to know the exact wording of. After a few more seconds of waiting, the shop's owner emerged from the back room and walked up to the spot in front of the bespectacled customer, a hand covering the top of her head of brownish blonde, short, curly hair.

"Hey there, Sinon-dear," she said, using Shino's standard gaming nickname. Typically she did that if she herself was playing video games right before coming out, since they knew each other pretty well online on PlayStation consoles. "My wireless mouse fell, so I went under the desk to get it, and then you rang the bell and startled me into hitting my head."

Normally, blaming a customer for one's problem right after they arrived would be terrible business practice even if it really was their fault. But aside from having a vendor/client relationship, Sinon and this very short, young-looking woman were good friends, though they were also highly competitive with each other. As such, they didn't hesitate to call each other out on things like this – in fact, they each took some form of pleasure in pointing out when the other was at fault for something.

"Talk about having terrible timing. Though I guess for you, having things happen at the worst time is pretty normal," the ebony-haired girl said while pushing up her glasses by the bridge. If she was going to get blamed for it, she decided she may as well fire right back.

The eye doctor and glasses designer immediately caught this gesture and smirked. "Oh, looks like you got your glasses messed up again. What's this, the third time this school year? Let me get them fixed for you, dear."

She grabbed Shino's glasses right off her face before she had the chance to react, then made for the back room again. Not five seconds later, the sound of footsteps alerted the ebony-haired girl to the presence of two people entering the store.

"Why did you drag me here? Neither of us need glasses," a somewhat sharp, unfamiliar female voice called. The girl whose glasses were taken knew just about everyone in the small town she lived in by voice, so that meant this person must have been from somewhere else.

"But I've never been in an eyeglass store before!" this voice was equally unfamiliar, but at the same time, somehow striking. It was light and clear, sounding almost like the voice of a pro singer. "I had to check it out when I saw it. After all, I probably won't get the chance again for a long time!"

Shino's curiosity overpowered her. She turned around in order to put faces to these new voices, and she was instantly taken aback by their… physical attributes. The one who probably spoke first, looking like she wondered why she was even there, had, to say the least… huge assets.

And the one who replied, looking really excited for whatever reason, well… she was just beautiful all around. She had a perfect hourglass figure, long, lustrous black hair that came down to the waistline of her matching-colored V-neck, and smooth, light porcelain skin completely free of blemishes. She had the flawless beauty a life-sized doll…

"Oh, hey, another person!" the doll-like girl exclaimed as her eyes found their way to Shino. "Oh, but she's not wearing glasses… you'd think everybody who comes here would be, but I guess not."

What a weirdo… she actually seemed disappointed when she saw that the shorter-haired girl a few meters away from her wasn't wearing glasses. Did she have a thing for them or what? Why would she even care if she didn't?

If anything, this girl's straightforward nature compelled Shino to be equally forthright, though she couldn't quite place why. "I do wear them. They're just being adjusted in the back room right now."

"Oho! You're already cute without them," the energetic beauty replied, seemingly unaware of the gravity of her words. "I bet your glasses really suit you!"

How could she just say all that so casually? How did she not get even the slightest bit embarrassed? For that matter, did she really think the short-haired girl was cute…? That didn't make any sense… it just wasn't true.

"Sorry about my big sister," the other girl, whose black hair only came down to her shoulders, apologized. "She just says whatever she thinks and does whatever she likes. It's pretty hard to handle, trust me."

"You're just jealous you can't be as honest and straightforward as me, Sugu," the apparent older sister of the two replied, smiling confidently. Her attention quickly shifted back to the store. "Ah, glasses are so nice. I wish I needed them so I'd have an excuse to try on a pair…"

She really was a weirdo. And one with a thing for glasses. Shino began to worry about what would happen when her own glasses were ready. But before she could think about it too much, that very time arrived and caught her by surprise.

"You know, we also do non-prescription orders," the familiar voice of the owner chimed in from right behind the short-haired girl. When had she gotten that close?! "So even if you don't have vision problems, I could still fit you with a nice pair of sunglasses or just regular non-prescription lenses. By the way, I'm done adjusting yours, Sinon."

"Please don't encourage her," the little sister pleaded on deaf ears.

The ebony-haired girl found her glasses sliding back onto her face. The nose pads seemed to be a good fit again, so the sliding problem would be gone until the next time they got damaged. Hopefully she'd be able to keep then in serviceable condition for at least a few months this time…

"Oh, an employee appeared!" the doll-like beauty said it like it was a random encounter in an RPG.

"She owns this place, actually," Shino explained, not even bothering to turn around to thank her gaming buddy.

"Ding, ding! She's right, I own this dump," the shortest girl in the room said, surprisingly getting in the pre-emptive strike of calling the shop a dump before her younger friend and long-time client could. "The name's Alice. But since it's hard to pronounce right, just call me Argo. It's my gaming name."

"You're the owner? But you barely even look like a teenager!" This girl… it seemed like every other thing she said was an exclamation instead of normal speaking.

"Aw, thanks!" Argo replied brightly, quite happy with being perceived as so young.

This was one of the many times that Shino wondered just how old her eye doctor friend was. But whenever asked, she always said she charged a hefty fee for the info, getting everyone to back off in an instant.

"Hmm… I was right," the excitable beauty decided, putting a hand to her chin. "Your glasses really do suit you. It's amazing!"

"Sis, just stop before you drive her nuts," her sister commanded with a sigh.

The bespectacled girl once again found herself questioning the words spoken about her. She was just plain – not cute at all. What did this girl see in Shino when she said things like that? She wanted to ask, but at the same time didn't want to start this sort of conversation with a perfect stranger.

Nicely enough, the once again bespectacled girl realized she had no further business here. She turned to face the owner of the shop and bowed lightly. "Thanks for fixing my glasses. I'll be going now. But I'll be online later tonight, so if you're on then, we can play some co-op."

"Will do. Catch you then!"

As Shino left the shop and headed for her home, she inwardly kicked herself for not getting the names of the two people she didn't recognize. But somehow, for reasons she couldn't quite explain, she had the feeling she'd see them again.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Yeah, I totally just made Argo an eye doctor. For those wondering her real age, she's in her mid-twenties. That's as far as I'll narrow it down to. She's totally going to have a significant role in the story now. I won't say how just yet so the story can still have some unpredictable parts even as a rewrite.**

 **Since I added a different character introduction scene for Kiriko, I'm saving the scene that originally served as Kimiko and Sinon's first meeting for next chapter. It's going to be different, but will still bear some resemblance to the one from the original.**

 **So, what do you think? I stand by the belief that this chapter is in a different league from the original one in a good way. But your opinion as the reader is still important here, so let's hear your thoughts in some reviews!**

 **Also, if you're just going to say some generic message that a five year old could think of, don't bother reviewing at all. I'm looking for critique here to improve my craft, and telling me "Great chapter, update soon" (or either part of that phrase on its own) doesn't help me in any way whatsoever. So if that was your plan, either don't bother or come up with something better to say.**

 **See you next time! Next chapter will be titled, "First Time Anxiety", with a not at all romantic context, if you can wrap your head around that.**


	2. II: First Time Anxiety

**Author's Note**

 **You can tell the pacing is slower because I'm taking three chapters to accomplish what the original story did in its first one. At this rate, this rewrite is going to be upwards of fifty chapters or more when you factor in the included rewrite of its sequel!**

 **Okay. So as usual a lot of this was written past my bedtime. It was also edited by a friend (not ForteDragon this time though), so I guess I can't say it wasn't proofread like I usually do. The quality is obviously better than the original, but it's also kinda internal monologue happy this time… I'm turning Shino into even more of a quiet introverted person than she was in the original, just wow.**

 **Unlike the beginning note of the first chapter, I'm not gonna make this one super long. Go ahead and read.**

* * *

Airsoft Guns, Bamboo Blades and Unyielding Love

Chapter Two: First Time Anxiety

* * *

 _The bespectacled girl once again found herself questioning the words spoken about her. She was just plain – not cute at all. What did this girl see in Shino when she said things like that? She wanted to ask, but at the same time didn't want to start this sort of conversation with a perfect stranger._

 _Nicely enough, the once again bespectacled girl realized she had no further business here. She turned to face the owner of the shop and bowed lightly. "Thanks for fixing my glasses. I'll be going now. But I'll be online later tonight, so if you're on then, we can play some co-op."_

 _"Will do. Catch you then!"_

 _As Shino left the shop and headed for her home, she inwardly kicked herself for not getting the names of the two people she didn't recognize. But somehow, for reasons she couldn't quite explain, she had the feeling she'd see them again._

* * *

After arriving home, a certain bespectacled girl decided to grab some things and head for the park. She went into her room and dropped her school bag by her bed before grabbing a worn, black denim backpack from her open closet. She unzipped it, then walked across her room and opened her dresser's top-left drawer, and before her stood what appeared to be firearms. One pistol and one disassembled rifle.

In reality, they were just airsoft guns. Aside from the obvious issue of obtaining real ones legally on an island nation that banned them for civilians, Shino probably wouldn't be able to handle having actual guns. Their mere presence would bring up too many terrible memories of the last day she spent with her parents. Even though getting these airsoft guns created based on real models was already an attempt to move past that time via shock therapy, she could at least hold them without having panic attacks.

That said, her heart still began to race as she picked the pistol up and dropped it into her backpack. She did the same with all the parts of the shotgun as well, along with some pellets for each, and by the end, her hands were shaking. It really took a lot out of her just to hold them, even after several months of owning and occasionally using them.

Shino zipped up her backpack and left her room without even changing out of her navy-blue blazer-type school uniform. She realized when she passed the bathroom that she'd have to open it again once she got to the kitchen. She really must've been out of sorts if she was doing things that created more work for herself, no matter how small – normally, she conserved effort wherever possible.

 _It's all because of what that free-spirited girl said…_

Once she made it to the kitchen, she immediately zeroed in on her targets: a bunch of empty cans that she kept on the white ceramic counter. She took a good portion of them from family parties – her extended family members were always nice enough to invite her to their gatherings, but at the same time, the fact that they even invited her to parties with drinking showed just how little they really knew about her.

Still, once they were too drunk to realize what happened around them, she did manage to get some empty beer cans off of them to take home. They made nice little targets for shooting practice, as she came to realize very quickly through soda cans earlier. If you were accurate enough and stood at the right distance, the pellets would go right through the thin aluminum.

She hadn't initially been planning on going to shoot up cans in the park that day. She had originally intended to just get her glasses fixed and go home to study and game. But those plans needed some adjusting… all because of that doll-like girl and her stupid mouth. She needed to do something to get her mind off that girl's words, otherwise she wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything.

It was, quite honestly, the first time in at least ten years that someone had called her cute. The last people to do it were her parents. Whether it was because she truly wasn't attractive or whether it was due to her never getting close enough with anyone else to consider them friends, she didn't know for certain. She typically assumed it was because of a combination of the two, however.

The feelings evoked when she was called that for the first time in years… Shino hated them. Or at least, she thought she did. It threw her so far off balance it was hard to tell exactly what she felt. That by itself was scary, not being able to know her own about it. Add to that the fact that the very person who said it was drop-dead gorgeous herself, and she was all kinds of confused. She didn't even know if she had positive or negative feelings about it. At the very least, however, she knew she absolutely despised not knowing for sure.

The ebony-haired girl shook her head to clear her thoughts before taking a bunch of cans and putting them in her bag. She added about twice as many as normal – she _really_ needed to blow off some steam. After that, she zipped her backpack up again, slung it over her shoulder and left the kitchen, and a few seconds later, her house as well.

She made sure to lock up before she moved past the front door, but really, it was more of a precaution than anything else. The whole rural town was relatively peaceful – crimes in general very rarely happened, let alone robberies. It was why she moved there at the start of middle school few years back. The town was founded with affluent people in mind, and typically, only the projected type of people lived there, throughout its whole history. That alone severely cut down on theft in particular. When everyone was rich, no one needed to steal.

Her neighborhood in particular was essentially devoid of anyone younger than thirty-five, save for her. And even then, technically, Shino supposed didn't really count for much, since her house actually belonged to her grandfather, who was well over fifty already. The lack of teenagers other than herself nearly eliminated all other kinds of crimes in the area.

By the time she reached the end of the driveway, the bespectacled girl noticed something amiss, something different from normal. The house next door to hers had more traffic than usual. On its driveway, a moving van sat, parked with the cargo door open. Big, muscular men of fairly generic appearance aside from that were moving boxes into the house via the garage.

She remembered there being a 'for sale' sign in the yard up until about two weeks prior, when it disappeared, implying that the house had been sold. However, no further activity in regards to the house happened since then… until this day, apparently. The new homeowners were finally moving in, it seemed.

Shino shook her head before continuing on her way without so much as another glance. She had long since stopped meddling in the affairs of others, it just wasn't her business. And it wasn't her style to go meet them face-to-face, even if they were her new next door neighbors. Even if she actually wanted to, she wouldn't, simply because she had no parents or anyone else to do it with and make it bearable. She lived alone after her grandfather moved back into his other house a year back.

The best thing about her neighborhood was that it was very close to the park. She arrived at its fenced borders after only five minutes of walking. Shino walked through the gate and found herself on a path thick with the green of late-summer plant life. She walked along the blacktop trail for another minute, until the trees got a little less dense, before branching off onto a dirt path to her right.

She quickly ended up in a clearing of sorts – by a loose definition, anyway. The whole field was littered with tree stumps, indicating it had once been a part of the forest around it. About six months after Sinon moved to this town, she noticed people cutting down the trees in this area. Apparently, from what she listened in on, they were planning to build a nature center there. But shortly after they cut down all the necessary trees, the project lost funding due to budget cuts of some sort, and had to be cancelled.

Shino found great use of the typically level stumps left behind. They were perfect for setting her targets and her bag on top of. She took her backpack off her shoulders and set it on the stump closest to the trail back, then unzipped it and pulled out her supplies one by one.

Out came five cans to start with, some pellets, and all the pieces of her airsoft rifle. She assembled it in ten seconds flat, going as fast as she could with relatively tremble-free hands. Using a big, bulky one like this was, to say the least, a lot less stressful than even touching a model pistol, as she knew from experience. Though she almost always brought her smaller airsoft gun, she very rarely so much as pulled it out of her bag.

After lining up her cans on a stump around five meters from her bag, she walked back over and picked up her airsoft rifle. As she got into the zone, she took aim, becoming calm, cool and collected. She had gotten used to wielding this fake gun, and could do it without getting even a little agitated at that point. She finished lining up her sights on the far left can and then fired.

 _Bang!_

"Hyaa!"

Bullseye, the pellet went right through the can. As for why it made that noise, her airsoft gun was fitted with a device that made a sound like real gunfire, though with decreased volume so she didn't get the cops called on her, upon her shooting. Shino got it as part of her— wait, did she just hear someone scream? And from right behind her?!

The bespectacled girl turned around in a flash, her model rifle turning with her. She immediately saw a very familiar girl right behind her: the very same girl who called her cute at the eyeglass store. There was no mistaking it. But why was she even here?!

"S-sorry, I didn't really mean to sneak up on you…" the doll-like beauty said, uncharacteristically acting shy. "I was exploring the forest when I saw you in the distance. I thought I'd come over and say hi, but then right as I got here, you shot that thing. I didn't even know you were holding it! But uh… can you point it somewhere else?"

Upon meeting her for a second time, the short-haired girl took in this new person's clothes for the first time. Before she had been shocked by her raw beauty to the point that she only really noticed the girl's shirt. But upon getting a closer look, she was also wearing a black windbreaker jacket and baggy cargo jeans. Her shirt was the only remotely girly article of clothing visible on her, and when you considered it was just a V-neck, that said a lot.

Shino sighed at this slight over-explanation before lowering her airsoft gun. So that must have been the reason she was acting so shy. She just heard what sounded like a real gunshot, and then the next moment, the origin of the sound was aiming straight at her. She must have been more than a little scared.

"You do realize this is just an airsoft gun, right? No need to be that scared of it," the bespectacled girl couldn't help but say.

The girl before her put a hand over her heart as her expression turned mildly defensive. "Cut me some slack, it was my first time hearing that sound in real life! New and unpredictable things either scare me or make me crazy nervous… and that was already scary on its own!"

This girl really just said whatever came into her mind, didn't she? Most people Shino's age, when accused of being scared of something like that, would try to deny it even when it was painfully obvious they were lying. But this beauty just came out and said that not only the event, but also new things in general, scared her. It was like she didn't have a social filter…

"Okay, whatever you say," the glasses-wearing girl conceded, holding her hands (and in doing so, her gun) skyward to signal she was giving up. "So you're new here, aren't you? It's a small town and I've never seen you before today."

"You got it!" the beauty bounced back, suddenly smiling as cheerily as she did in the eyeglass store. "We're moving in today. My sister and I were given free rein to explore the town while the movers get everything inside. She and I split up to go our own ways recently, right before I decided to check out the park."

They were moving in that day? That struck an awfully familiar chord… hadn't she just seen a moving van right next door? Was this person going to be her new neighbor? But no, this could just be a coincidence, two unconnected incidents. She probably shouldn't bring it up, just in case she was wrong.

"We'll probably see each other around, then. You look like a high schooler, so we'll likely meet each other there," Shino assessed coolly. As long as this girl didn't call her cute again, she'd at least be tolerable.

To clarify, this town was founded with the idea of rich people living there. And within that niche, at least in this area, kids were a fair bit less common than in working class families. There was only one school in the whole town. It was a private school, too, and it went from elementary school to high school. If they were even in the same level of schooling, never mind year and class, they'd probably see each other around.

"Oh, then let's introduce ourselves! It'd be nice to have someone I know in school right away!" the free-spirited girl exclaimed, her smile as bright as the sun itself. "I'm Kirigaya Kimiko! Nice to meet you!"

"Look, I realize you already gave me your name, but I don't really want to give mine to a perfect stranger," the bespectacled girl backed up a little, her inner walls erecting double strength. "Besides, it's probably better that you don't get to know me."

"But why is that—"

The beauty named Kimiko suddenly paused, then looked down. She put a hand in her jeans pocket, pulling out a touch screen cell phone. A quick look at the screen and her whole demeanor changed to be significantly more mellow. When she looked back at Shino, she was like a completely different person.

"Sorry if I was a bother to you," she said, giving a sort of rueful smile before turning around. "Looks like I gotta go now and help unpack. See you around."

With that, she left, walking back along the dirt path at an even, measured pace. The bespectacled girl kept watching her until she disappeared from view. She had to wonder what the girl read that caused such a complete tone shift.

 _A bother, she said?_

That girl, Kimiko, was a lot of things. But so far, at the very least, a bother wasn't one of them. If anything, her most unsettling feature - her complete lack of any verbal filter - actually made her more tolerable than the girls in Shino's class.

If they ever met again and had time to talk in private, the short-haired girl decided she'd ask her what made her call herself that.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Okay, so in the last part of the scene we have a reversal from how it went in the original. Kimiko introduced herself and then Shino was all like "Back off bra, we barely just met".** _ **Like she should have been originally,**_ **given my version of her personality. I'm trying to go for a more realistic and in-character approach for Shino, since my Kimiko is like drastically different from how I normally write her in FF, never mind how her canon counterpart is.**

 **Yes, I just made a chapter titled "First Time Anxiety" that was just talking about Kimiko's first time hearing gunshot noises IRL (or, from an alternate viewpoint that more of you probably noticed, the first time Shino was called cute in like ten years). No over the top romantic context here! Or at least, not yet, anyway. I'm at least trying to use normal pacing this time, unlike the original, which made Kimiko and Shino's relationship go from zero (strangers) to sixty (confessing) in just a few days.**

 **I'm so tired… my left hand wants to kill me because I've been typing super un-ergonomically for the past several hours. I wanted to go to bed at twelve AM but then I stayed up until three-thirty to finish this, totally fucking up my sleep schedule right before I have a sleep study scheduled (this Tuesday night)… yay, irrational and irresistible writing urges FTW! I still waited until the next day to finalize and release the chapter, but the damage was already done by that point.**

 **So anyway, I guess I shouldn't bother you guys with my problems. Go ahead and move on with your day, I'm done here for now.**

 **See you next time!**


	3. III: Speed Blitzed

**Author's Note**

 **Hey, this chapter is longer than the other two before it! Cool, my length actually increased! Normally it gets worse before getting better… so this was a welcome surprise. Especially considering all of this chapter is just one long scene. Even without the author notes, this thing topped 3500 words! That's 3-400 words longer than both of the first two chapters _with_ author notes! I'm getting way too excited about this, aren't I?**

 **Contrary to the last chapter, this one was primarily edited by ForteDragon. But Konetsu did pop in to do a little editing while we were working on it (make your threesome jokes while you can), so they're both getting a thanks note here. Thanks a bunch you two, I really appreciate the help! It looks about three times better now that it's been edited!**

 **Anyway, about this chapter. It's basically just a collection of setups for future events. But it's also my attempt at making Sinon's trauma and how she copes with it more realistic than in canon (for those of you who don't know, the lack of realism in Sinon's trauma in canon is why I dislike Phantom Bullet and to a lesser extent Sinon herself).**

 **You don't really need to be briefed on anything else. Go ahead and start reading.**

* * *

Airsoft Guns, Bamboo Blades and Unyielding Love

Chapter Three: Speed Blitzed

* * *

 _"Sorry if I was a bother to you," she said, giving a sort of rueful smile before turning around. "Looks like I gotta go now and help unpack. See you around."_

 _With that, she left, walking back along the dirt path at an even, measured pace. The bespectacled girl kept watching her until she disappeared from view. She had to wonder what the girl read that caused such a complete tone shift._

A bother, she said?

 _That girl, Kimiko, was a lot of things. But so far, at the very least, a bother wasn't one of them. If anything, her most unsettling feature - her complete lack of any verbal filter - actually made her more tolerable than the girls in Shino's class._

 _If they ever met again and had time to talk in private, the short-haired girl decided she'd ask her what made her call herself that._

* * *

By the time Shino finished with her homework, it was only half an hour before she needed to go to bed. She still had enough time to do some light gaming, but nothing too intensive. She did, after all, have school the next morning. If she stayed up too late, she might sleep in and break her thus far perfect on-time attendance record.

So rather than log onto the main RPG that she normally played with Alice, the owner of the eyeglass store, she went onto another one that the brown-haired woman didn't play. If she went on their usual game, she'd get sucked into going on some two-hour long raid and totally stay up past her bedtime.

The game she selected was one known primarily for its drastic stat based player performance changes, and as such, its amazing PvP. In this RPG, she had an archer character with a pure Dexterity build – there wasn't a single enemy she'd ever faced that she couldn't reliably hit with her bow. Locally, she was pretty well-known as one of the best in the local PvP circuit, though she hadn't ever saw fit to test her skills outside of her home town's area.

After she got to the load screen, she selected the multiplayer option. Then, presented with both co-op and PvP as her options, she chose the latter. She then joined the default room that would show up for people in her local area, and her character appeared on the lobby map. She moved the avatar up to the left counter, the NPC of which allowed you to challenge the people who put their names on the list from the one on the right.

She saw the same names as usual for this time of night… except for the one at the bottom. That last one, she'd never seen before – and the name sounded kind of similar to the one she'd just been told earlier that day.

"Kiriko, huh?" Shino muttered to herself. "Definitely sounds like a combination of Kirigaya and Kimiko. Well, only one way to find out for sure…"

One of this game's unique features was that the player could record their own win and loss messages for PvP if they so wished. There were, of course, also a list of preset voices and lines to choose from if one wanted to retain their anonymity, but most people who played this game with multiplayer recorded their own to serve as signatures of sorts. If this new player had done that, then Shino would be able to tell if they were really the same person or not after they finished a match.

The bespectacled girl selected the name from the list and then chose 'duel' from the command window that popped up. For a few seconds, she waited with bated breath for this player to respond, and then, after a short three seconds, they accepted. As the one who put their name on the list, this Kiriko person would also be choosing their arena.

The one displayed on the screen was… interesting, to say the least. It was a large, moderately windy grass field-type map, and it had never been one that Shino particularly liked. Wind in this game affected one's movement speed as well as the speed and range of the dash command, which also included the skills that incorporated such movements. So in very windy locations, one could be up to twice as mobile if they had the wind at their backs, or half as much if it was directly against them.

This was one of the windiest PvP maps, but it still capped out at either buffing mobility by fifty percent or lowering it by twenty-five, so as not to be too game-breaking for those with unlucky positioning. However, the biggest annoyance of this map had to be the specific buff spots scattered throughout the place. The little levitating spheres of white light would buff the agility of the first to touch them by fifty percent per spot. Which would mean pretty huge increases in skill casting speed, not to mention action and movement speed.

And though some of the buff spots spawned at random locations, there were a few constants, with one being right in between where the players would spawn. Which would of course be a very bad idea to let her opponent have if Shino wanted to get an early advantage. She ran an almost pure Dexterity bow and arrow build, so she didn't have a whole lot of speed to begin with. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the direction of the wind would likely decide the result of the battle if she were to fight here.

The bespectacled girl realized at that exact moment that she had kept the other player waiting for at least twenty seconds while she thought. They couldn't start the duel until she confirmed the field choice. Blushing bright pink in embarrassment that she was glad her opponent couldn't see, she hurriedly accepted before they decided to abandon the duel. After a few seconds on a loading screen, they spawned on their map of choice.

Right from the very beginning, as the buzzer counted down from ten seconds, Shino realized this duel wasn't going to play out well for her. The wind was blowing exactly opposite her turquoise-haired avatar, which would make her as slow as possible and her black-haired opponent as fast as possible.

Not to mention her opponent was running a dual swords build. While the bespectacled girl would have an advantage at a good range, the moment that kind of build got too close, she could be hit by some logic-defyingly long and powerful combos. Dual weapon builds could often pull out some absolutely unbelievable original skills, too.

The duel ended in three seconds.

Right at the buzzer, the dual swords girl activated some sort of sword skill without even moving closer, the blades lighting up faintly. Shino immediately responded by pressing the buttons to activate a stun arrow skill to interrupt her foe's action. But before she even finished pressing the last button, the black-haired avatar had closed the distance between them and delivered a diagonal slash with her blue-glowing right blade. Her left followed up in a mirror of the initial hit that created a vice-like combo.

This two-hit skill, which didn't appear to be one of the game's default combos, had already taken out a fourth of the turquoise-haired avatar's HP in a single second. The activation speed of her skill was absolutely off the charts – it was almost instantaneous! To make things worse, when her attack closed the distance, the dual blades monster apparently took the buff spot in between them, making her even faster.

Shino immediately tried to back out and create some distance by dashing, hoping the bonus from the wind direction would get her to safety, but her opponent activated yet another skill as she tried to move away. Once again, the time between charge and combo start was just about instant – if anything, it was even faster. This new skill opened with a lunging thrust from the right that caught the archer dead in the stomach while she was stuck defenseless in the dash animation, unable to block.

It then followed with a horizontal slash from the left blade. Next, several diagonal strikes, until the hit count reached an incredible ten hits. By the end of the combo, which once again seemed to be one of this player's self-made skills, the bespectacled girl's avatar had completely run out of HP.

She lost before she could do anything to fight back. She had been totally speed blitzed in a way she didn't even realize was possible.

The screen turned white for a moment, and when it came back, the screen was split between a close up of each avatar. This would be where each player's win/loss phrase would be spoken. Because this person won without taking damage, the phrase that would play, if she selected one for it, would be her 'perfect win' phrase. But the loser's phrase would come first, and since Shino lost without dealing any damage, her 'overwhelming defeat' phrase would play.

"How careless…" it was one of the default phrases and voices, but it described the situation well. She shouldn't have accepted a duel in this arena, where the speed difference could quickly become too much to overcome.

"Ha-ha, you underestimated me!"

This voice… yup, it was definitely the girl she met in the eyeglass store and the park. It had the slight drop in quality of a recorded message, but it sounded just like her, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Which meant that Shino just got utterly destroyed by a weirdo with a glasses fetish. Talk about getting your pride hurt… that wasn't even a match, it was a completely one-sided slaughter! How could she call herself a top local player after getting defeated so easily, and by such an odd girl at that?

Could she even say she still _had_ any pride after that beat-down? It kind of got slashed down to smithereens along with her turquoise-haired archer avatar…

As they returned to the lobby, half of her wanted to just go to bed and forget about this painful experience, and half of her wanted to acknowledge that she knew the girl who destroyed her, even if it _really_ sucked.

However, the decision was quickly made for her. A notification popped up on her screen, not one from the game, but rather from the console. It told her she had a new message, and after a look at the name displayed, it did, in fact, happen to be the same name she just lost against. She pressed the button to view her messages so she could see it, then began to read.

 _"Hey there! Sorry, I kind of didn't hold back much. But you know, if you blocked instead of trying to dash out, you would have lasted longer since I wouldn't have been able to activate my second skill effectively!"_

Not only did she effortlessly win, but she decided to lecture her, too? It was almost infuriatingly insulting, even if she most likely didn't intend any ill will. Shino gritted her teeth and typed up a response, trying to keep her emotions in check as much as possible.

 _"But unless I switched to a different weapon, I would have just been delaying the inevitable. And I didn't have another weapon equipped, anyway."_

Really, she didn't have any other options. Normally, she didn't need any other weapons, either… nobody had ever come at her that fast before. She could usually interrupt other players to stop their first action and then maintain control of the battle from that distance until she won. This experience was so far outside the norm that it was almost as if she was suddenly playing a different game.

The resulting reply only added insult to injury.

 _"Yeah, about that… you run a pure DEX build, right? Your equipment suggests that, at least. You should really consider equipping a dagger for close range battles. Your DEX will add to your crit rate and you'll get more OS slots. I'm not personally acquainted with that style, since the only archer I regularly duel runs an AGI build and consequently has a rapier as her other weapon, but I'm pretty sure a bow/dagger build would be a good combo."_

Just the day before, Shino was one of the best in the area with a near perfect win record in the dueling circuit. Then, this girl shows up, beats her in record time, and then promptly starts telling her how to play the game better… it really couldn't get much worse.

To clarify about something the other girl mentioned, OS stood for 'Original Skill'. It was the collective term for the skill combos one could create in 'skill record mode' by chaining together actions within a time limit determined by one's equipped weapon and stat scaling choices. Once a skill was recorded, each action would be sped and powered up to match the speed and damage of the default skill combos.

Both of the skills Kiriko used to beat her were OS combos, though the bespectacled girl had to admit she'd never seen one ten hits long before in her life. The first one she used, though, was a bit more straight forward – she probably chained a dash into two diagonal strikes made by tilting the joystick while hitting the attack button to create it.

Normally, a player would have three OS slots per weapon type. So that meant if, for example, Shino had a bow and a dagger equipped, she would be able to record up to three OS skills per weapon. But in the case of wielding two of the same type of one-handed weapon – like Kiriko's dual swords build – the player would get six OS slots like normal, but they would all be for the same weapon combination. This, of course, gave such players the ability to equip a full arsenal of original combos, since the maximum number of attack skills one could equip was exactly six.

Which meant that the bespectacled girl had likely only seen a third of the unique cards in her opponent's hand. Talk about a crushing defeat. She typed out a reply, sighing in resignation as she hit send.

 _"It's kind of pride crushing to get so completely shown up by the new girl in town… but thanks for the free info, I guess."_

It didn't even take five seconds before she got a response. Granted, it was a kind of short one, but the speed kind of forced it to be like that, Shino supposed. For the amount she said, it was still pretty quick.

 _"Huh? I don't think I ever said I was new here…"_

The short-haired girl expected this – from the moment she baited the conversation by adding in the 'new girl in town' bit, she had been trying to get it to flow this direction. Luckily, this girl was at least perceptive enough to figure it out right away. That is, to figure out that under normal circumstances, she shouldn't have known that for certain based on what had been revealed so far. She made quick work of responding.

 _"Well, your username is a combination of the first and last names I just got told by a new girl moving in. Who also happens to have the same voice as you do in your victory message. It was pretty easy to connect the dots from there."_

This time, the reply came in a little under three seconds. _"Oh, you're the cute glasses girl I met!"_

If this were an anime, Shino would have had both a blush and an anger vein popping on her forehead right about then. She got called cute again, which was embarrassing and confusing, but on top of that, she got called a 'glasses girl'… by a girl with an apparent fetish for the aforementioned eyewear. Not exactly the direction she wanted this conversation to go.

 _"If you're planning to keep calling me that, you may as well just call me by my in-game name."_ came her response to this minor offense.

 _"Sinon-san, then?"_

 _"We're talking over PSN, you don't have to bother with honorifics."_

 _"Okay… Sinon. (*\\\\\\*')"_

The hell was she doing getting embarrassed by _just that_ after unabashedly saying so damn many things that were _far_ more embarrassing?! This girl just didn't make sense sometimes…! Why choose something as simple as calling someone by a name without honorifics to get flustered over?

Shino felt so exhausted right then. She just wanted to abort the conversation and go to sleep. She typed out one final thing before she left.

 _"I don't know whether you start school tomorrow or what, but I need to go to bed so I can be on time. I'm signing off now. See you later, Kiriko."_

 _"Bye!"_

After reading the parting word, the bespectacled girl stood up from her couch, walked over and turned off her TV. She had her most recent PlayStation model situated on a shelf that had levels made of metal grates which gave plenty of breathing room, so she could leave her console on indefinitely without having to worry about it overheating. Since she didn't really want to go back into her game so she could save it, she decided to just leave the system on for the night.

After she set her controller down and plugged it in to allow it to charge, she walked from her living room to her kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard on the right. She then took it to the sink and filled it with a single gulp's worth of water – she was about to go to bed, so she'd regret it if she drank too much.

Shino set the glass down for the moment, then grabbed two pill bottles from where she left them on the counter. Not many people knew, and she didn't like to admit it, but she relied on a few medications in order to be able to function normally. One was a pill that helped her sleep soundly through the night; if she didn't take it, she'd have night terrors (think really bad nightmares except about five times as debilitating) every night and lose sleep over it, which led to huge decreases in performance in school. This med was, unfortunately, also why she couldn't drink a lot before going to bed – it made her sleep so soundly that if she drank too much, she'd end up having to wash her clothes and sheets when she got up, to put it plainly. That was never fun, and it just created more work for her.

The other pill she took was some anti-anxiety medication that she couldn't pronounce the name of. She kept a bottle of this in her school bag, just in case. Originally, she just took it when she had panic attacks, but more recently, her psychiatrist decided to put her on it more regularly to help ease her everyday anxiety as well.

If she hadn't been under the effects of that pill when that free-spirited girl called her cute, it would have done a hell of a lot more than just leave her out of sorts for a while. She would have been a total wreck, to say the least possible in order to preserve _some_ of her dignity.

She absolutely hated relying on pills to solve her problems. But at the same time, she couldn't imagine how much worse her life would be without them. So she had no intention of stopping use of them anytime soon. Going off of them would be a far bigger risk to her health than just continuing to take them.

She opened each pill bottle and got a single capsule out from each one. Holding them in one hand, she grabbed her glass with the other and drained it, but kept the water in her mouth. After that, she popped both pills into her mouth and swallowed. They went down with no resistance.

Having finished with her business in the kitchen, Shino set the glass in the sink and went back to her bedroom at a leisurely pace, stopping every once in a while to check and make sure that all the lights in the house were out. After arriving in her room, she went right up to her bed and crawled under the covers – she had already gotten dressed in her black cotton pajamas between finishing her homework and starting to game. Before laying her head down on her pillow, she took her glasses off and set them on her nightstand, then turned off her bedside lamp.

Right before drifting off, she grabbed her phone from its charging spot on her nightstand and made sure her school alarm was set. Not a minute after setting it back down, she was out like a light, exhausted from her unusually eventful day.

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **So yeah, I made Sinon take pills to cope. Honestly, one of my biggest gripes about how stupidly written her trauma/anxiety was in the anime was the fact that we never saw her actually attempt to fix it in a realistic way. If people making finger guns at you is enough to make you have panic attacks, you need some** ** _serious_** **help, either through medications, therapy, or both. So I'm going to include that, since it adds a dose of realism to her trauma (which by the way, is different – I made up my own event for Sinon's traumatic past, I'm not using the bank shootout thing from canon in this fic. Just so you guys don't automatically assume that I'm going that route with my already-stated total AU).**

 **And, surprise, surprise, one of the pills she takes has a side effect! Yes, I did have to include that side effect of the sleep pill (which she can obviously avoid by just not drinking too much before bedtime, how nice for her to have such a manageable one). Again, I'm trying for realism here. Having people take pills and never making them deal with any unintended or undesirable effects is just bad, unrealistic writing. I came up with that one because for certain sleep aids I can confirm that they are at least said to do stuff like that (can't confirm whether they actually do because I've been lucky to not have any of the related side effects outside of sleep hangovers). And trust me, when you have whatever sleep disorder I do (they still haven't come up with an accurate diagnosis yet and it started years ago), you get put on a** ** _lot_** **of different sleep aids. I have tons of experience in that field.**

 **Well, I'm about done for now, I suppose. Next chapter is going to be their school morning, possibly going through to lunch. I dunno, it depends on how long I end up making the opening scene. Either way, prepare for Kiriko to begin (and possibly finish) the quest to learn Sinon's real life name!**

 **See you next time!**


	4. IV: Bleeding Eyes

**Author's note**

 **Bet you guys didn't expect to see this updated, did you? I've been looking at it recently out of sheer boredom with the GGO SW-verse, and it's rekindled my interest in continuing it. Expect more chapters than just this one to follow in the next few months.**

 **This chapter is a bit shorter, but I don't think it skimps in the emotional department. And damn, it was one hell of a blast to write. Bring on the harsh criticisms that come with me actually enjoying what I'm writing, I don't even care! Worth it!**

 **That said, before we move forward, there's one thing I want to say. And that is: in the scope of this story, Shino will not, and I repeat,** ** _will not_** **, ever stop taking her pills. Yeah, they have side effects, and yeah, she doesn't like depending on them, but I'm of the school of thought that they actually work well enough to justify the drawbacks if the pill is right for the person. I myself would not have come nearly as far as I have in life in general, let alone writing, without prescription drugs. I would not wish going off meds on** ** _anyone_** **with an anxiety disorder, let alone such a character I'm actually writing myself.**

 **Okay, with all that out of my system, let's get this party started!**

* * *

Airsoft Guns, Bamboo Blades, and Unyielding Love

Chapter Four: Bleeding Eyes

 _She absolutely hated relying on pills to solve her problems. But at the same time, she couldn't imagine how much worse her life would be without them. So she had no intention of stopping use of them anytime soon. Going off of them would be a far bigger risk to her health than just continuing to take them._

 _She opened each pill bottle and got a single capsule out from each one. Holding them in one hand, she grabbed her glass with the other and drained it, but kept the water in her mouth. After that, she popped both pills into her mouth and swallowed. They went down with no resistance._

 _Having finished with her business in the kitchen, Shino set the glass in the sink and went back to her bedroom at a leisurely pace, stopping every once in a while to check and make sure that all the lights in the house were out. After arriving in her room, she went right up to her bed and crawled under the covers – she had already gotten dressed in her black cotton pajamas between finishing her homework and starting to game. Before laying her head down on her pillow, she took her glasses off and set them on her nightstand, then turned off her bedside lamp._

 _Right before drifting off, she grabbed her phone from its charging spot on her nightstand and made sure her school alarm was set. Not a minute after setting it back down, she was out like a light, exhausted from her unusually eventful day._

* * *

Upon leaving the house for school the next morning, Shino stole a glance at the house next door. She had the sneaking suspicion that the new girl she'd recently encountered both in-game and IRL had moved in there, but she didn't have any concrete proof to back up her gut feeling.

She waited a few seconds to see if anyone would come out, but ultimately, she realized that this would only make it harder to get to school on time. So she gave up and started walking towards school, thoughts of the strange girl she met yesterday still running through her mind incessantly.

In her high school, the students were allowed to choose their own seating at the start of the year. As a trade off for this, they only got to change seats once in the school year, at the start of the second semester. So if you chose to sit with your friends and you got into a fight with them, you would have to sit with them anyway for a good, long while.

Because of this rule and the fact that her class was three people short of a full roster, Shino had been more or less alone since the school year started that spring, with the exception of lunch time, when the kendo geeks came to sit by their friend, who sat two seats in front of the bespectacled girl. She chose to sit in the far corner, by the window, and because everybody else already had their own cliques formed, that meant that the three seats left empty were the two seats to her right and the one right in front of her.

She didn't mind the solitude, since it meant she didn't have to talk to anyone. But that wasn't the reason she was thinking about it. This had come to her mind because of one, simple reason:

In this small, backwater town, there was only one school for each level, and they were all run by the same people and even shared a campus. Because of that, and the fact that the school itself was rather small, it meant that not only was the new girl sure to transfer into the same school as Shino, but… there was also a good chance that they could end up in the same class once it happened.

And if they were in the same class, then that meant that the girl with a glasses fetish would be taking one of the three available seats – all of which were close to the bespectacled girl's own desk. Which, of course, begged the question: which seat would Kimiko choose? The one two seats away, the one in front of her, or the one next to her?

If she hadn't encountered her so many times the day before, Shino probably could have honestly said she didn't care at all. But after interacting with the raven-haired girl so much, she couldn't help but be… fascinated, for lack of a better word. Kimiko was a doll-like, cheerful, genuine, eccentric beauty with amazing skills at video games. That had a little something to interest almost anyone who came into contact with her. It would be much harder not to be at least somewhat fascinated by her.

Or, at the very least, that's how Shino rationalized this strange, unfamiliar desire to want to get to know someone and borderline obsessive thought consumption. A feeling that, quite honestly, she hadn't felt in more years than she'd care to admit.

* * *

Shino made it all the way to her desk without seeing her acquaintance even once. She made it to the classroom full of yammering girls and immediately pulled out her book the moment she sat down at her seat, thereby cutting herself off from the rest of the class. To that point, things went as usual.

However, that was about where it stopped. For some reason, she couldn't fully tune out the incessant chatter of all the girls around her very well today. It wasn't as if they were saying anything particularly interesting. Just standard girl talk, with the occasional geeky line from a special interest group like the kendo girls.

Classes in this school were divided by gender, for reasons that seemed to date back to positively archaic times. This was, after all, a private school in a small, wealthy town where most of the residents were not of school-going age. They didn't have a whole lot of incentives to keep up with the times.

While there were a few events each year, both mandatory and optional, that allowed male and female students to interact with one another, classes of different genders were largely kept separate. Shino didn't necessarily mind this – if anything, the fact that the voices all sounded similar made them easier to tune out most of the time.

But during the rare times when they didn't just melt away into the background, it got to be really annoying. As in, she wanted to just yell at them all to shut up and storm out of the room. She really couldn't deal with chaotic noise very well after the incident that caused her to move here.

So rather than continually try to read as her anger and anxiety slowly built up, Shino decided to retreat deep into the recesses of her own mind and try tuning it out that way. As she closed her eyes from behind the protection of her open book, she decided to just start thinking about the first thing that came to her mind.

 _"You're already cute without them. I bet your glasses really suit you!"_

Actually, she took it back. She'd go with the second thing that came to her mind. Surely she'd get something less… confusing and distressing the second time around, right? She couldn't have such bad luck twice in a row. So she cleared her mind and tried again.

 _"Oh, you're the cute glasses girl I met!"_

God damn it. Well, this wasn't really lowering her anger or anxiety much at all, was it? Luckily, before she could try a third time, a gentle yet gruff, masculine voice projected across the whole room brought her out of her thoughts and to attention. Apparently, the period one teacher, Mr. Nishida, had arrived and began addressing the class without her noticing. Shino put her book down the moment she heard his voice.

"Good morning to all of you!" the nearly bald, bony-faced man in a gray suit and tie addressed his class. Once everyone's attention was on him, he continued. "Glad to see everyone's so lively today! Makes this next part a lot easier!"

 _Next part?_

"See, something interesting starts today," he explained, his smile making the bespectacled girl wonder what the hell he was thinking of. "Starting today, a new girl from Tokyo will be joining us in this class. She's a talented kendo practitioner who has been training since she could hold a shinai. And on top of her athletic prowess, she got a perfect score on the entrance exam in all subjects, too – you all could learn a thing or two from her!"

So, it looked like Kimiko would be coming to this class after all – wait a damn minute here, something seemed wrong. Did he just say perfect scores in all subjects on the entrance exam? Shino studied regularly and she was a B-grade student! This school's exams were hard! Could he really be talking about the same weird, straightforward girl with a glasses fetish that Shino met the other day? Could Kimiko really score perfect in every subject?

And beyond that, was there really any chance that the same Kimiko who trashed her in one of her favorite video games so effortlessly also be a talented athlete? The more she heard about this new transfer student, the more it solidified in the bespectacled girl's mind that they couldn't be the same person.

"Kirigaya-san, you can come in now!"

This didn't mean it was her! Kimiko had a sister who was much more level-headed and seemingly responsible. It could definitely be her that got those perfect scores and had the kendo talent! Yeah, that had to be it. There was no way Kimiko could really be that—

Shino's thoughts were cut off by the sound of footsteps making their way into the room. Her eyes immediately locked onto the person entering the classroom with the swiftness of a speeding car. And when she registered what she saw, she had to push her glasses up as far as they would go to ensure she was seeing right, that the sight before her wasn't the result of some glare she didn't notice. When they settled into place…

 _Still looks like Kimiko._

She blinked, once, twice, ten times. Meanwhile, the raven-haired girl walked up to the blackboard and wrote her name on it with the nearest piece of chalk. She even went as far as to write it a second time in hiragana, leaving no room for misinterpretation of her name's reading and pronunciation. It read:

Kirigaya Kimiko

 _Yeah, no mistaking it now. It's Kimiko… fuck._

Shino closed her eyes in disbelief at how amazingly she'd misjudged this girl. It wasn't that she had something to appeal to almost anyone she met. It wasn't that she had a good balance of strengths and quirks that drew people in. It was that she was so goddamn perfect at everything it made the average onlooker's eyes bleed!

Well, this was just freaking _perfect_. Up until that point, she had honestly considered befriending the girl she'd somehow come to see as alluring. But in that moment, any notion of doing any such thing flew right out the window. After all, it was those very people… the bright, supposedly cheery people who were good at anything they tried…

It was those very people that Shino hated the most. And this girl seemed to be the very embodiment of all the things she hated about them. When she opened her eyes, a sharp glare ready for battle, she found two expressive gray irises staring right back at her. This girl was looking right at her with a great big smile on her face! Even after seeing her glare, she didn't even falter! The nerve!

As they maintained eye contact, Kimiko began to speak, her voice bright, cheery, and suddenly so very _annoying_. Even though she was addressing the entire class, the bespectacled girl felt like the message seemed to be intended for her and her alone. And god damn, did it get under her skin now.

"My name is Kirigaya Kimiko! I look forward to working with you!"

 _Just fucking great,_ Shino thought, her anger and anxiety getting the better of her in her thoughts alone. _This is gonna be a long, annoying school year._

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Oh my nonexistent god, you have no idea how immensely satisfying it was to write Shino into hating Kimiko, whom I usually write as a living female chick magnet, the ultimate of lady lady-killers. This is gonna be so fucking amazing to continue now! It's gonna be a struggle for them to just become friends, never mind lovers! Pacing problems of the original, you just got solved!**

 **My own self-hype aside, what do you guys think of this chapter? I mean, about a third of the reason I write is to please my audience, which is definitely enough to care about your opinions. Contrary to what I said above, if you want to blast it to hell, I'll listen to your concerns and take them into account when writing future chapters. If you liked it and want this kind of writing to continue, that's awesome, but please at least tell me what I'm doing right. If you're somewhere in the middle, tell me what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.**

 **That's about it. We're still kind of world building here, so I don't have a whole lot of in depth stuff to explain outside the narrative. So I'll just let you go with this:**

 **See you next time! And trust me, there** ** _will_** **be a next time.**


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